It is an acknowledgement by the founders of our country, declaring independence from Britain, that human rights are bestowed by God via creation, that the natural state of the human being contains God-given rights. It is the basis, forms the foundation of the founding of our country. And here is more living proof and testimony that this hasn’t been taught, nor has history been taught in American education, particularly journalism schools, in way too long.

There’s a woman named Meredith Shiner. She is the political reporter for Yahoo News. Now, you might say, “So what?” Well, don’t discount Yahoo News. The low-information crowd lives there. Facebook, Twitter, all these different news digests, Yahoo News is — (interruption) What are you laughing at? Is this news to you? You didn’t know this and you just find it funny, or did I… (interruption) Well, it is. Yahoo News ranks in the top five of news sources for low-information and young people.

She tweeted yesterday, Meredith Shiner did, that Ted Cruz talking about God-given rights was bizarre. She said, she tweeted, “Bizarre to talk about how rights are God-made and not man-made in your speech announcing a POTUS bid? When Constitution was man-made?”

We have a glittering jewel of colossal ignorance on full and proud display here. This woman, the political reporter for Yahoo, has no clue about the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. She probably has scant knowledge of the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, the people involved. I wonder what she would do if she heard about the Founders pledging their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, would she call them extremists? Nothing could be worth all of that?

Meredith Shiner is a Yahoo News political reporter, and before Yahoo she spent three years at Roll Call, where she was considered a leader in the newsroom, and then she worked at Politico for two years. She is a graduate of Duke University. She grew up in Chicago. That background I provide on purpose so you can have a great idea of just how ill-educated people coming out of higher education today are and where they end up working: Roll Call, Politico, and now Yahoo News. A graduate of Duke University. She has no idea.

She is totally unfamiliar with, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights –“

I would love to hear Meredith Shiner try to explain unalienable rights. “– that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Our Founders acknowledged that the human being is created with those unalienable rights. It means they can’t be taken away by human beings. Even if they’re taken away, you have your rights, that’s who you are, that’s what humanity as created by God, as enshrined in the preamble of our Declaration of Independence states.

She is totally clueless. The concept — and this, folks, this is classic. This tells you everything you need to know about modern education, religion, and the way little liberals and journalists have grown to believe that the center of the universe is Washington, DC, and government, and everything comes from there. Remember the monologues yesterday and the whole notion of “Washington works.” Washington isn’t working, as stated by Mark Halperin. Washington isn’t working.

These are people who believe that everything that you have permission to do comes from Washington. Every right that you have is the result of legislation, or executive action, or superior political beings acting on our behalf, conveying to us our rights. So here comes a Harvard-educated lawyer, top of his class, an accomplishment debater, has won numerous elections, who comes along and simply affirms the preamble to the Declaration of Independence and the acknowledgement that our rights come from God, and this woman reporter blows a gasket because she is offended.

It’s blasphemy to her for someone to say that rights come from God. “Not everybody believes in God. You can’t say that,” she probably believes. “How could our rights come from God when the Constitution was man-made?” Rights are legislation, rights are laws, rights are whatever some liberal somewhere wants to claim is a right? The basic ignorance that does not allow for the understanding of what even a right is versus a law, versus a statute, but the wanton, willful, happy ignorance of the concept in the preamble to the Declaration is just overwhelming.

But, folks, it’s so indicative, it’s so illustrative of how education is performing one of the greatest disservices to people whose parents are paying 20 grand a semester, or a year, to have their minds, their skulls full of mush filled up with this kind of drivel. Meredith Shiner, Duke University graduate, Yahoo News political reporter, Roll Call three years, Politico for two years, has no idea, literally no idea about the founding of this country. And without that, her work as a journalist is worthless because she doesn’t know history. She hasn’t been taught history. To add insult to injury, this woman thinks she’s the one that knows everything, and somebody like Ted Cruz is the dangerous idiot that we have to stop.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, that preamble to the Declaration of Independence, was the political revolution that literally rocked the world. The Declaration of Independence and its preamble broke the hold of monarchs, tyrants as the source of rights all over the world. It literally changed the world. The world before America is a world most of us would never want to live in.

It is why I have said over and over again that the real definition of American exceptionalism can be found in our founding documents and what they created. Human life prior to the United States of America for most people was one form of bondage or another. Everybody lived under tyranny in one form or another. The United States of America was the first organized nation to come along and claim that it was the people of the nation around whom the nation would be built.

Not a monarch, not a tyrant, not even a government.

That is why people the world over have risked their lives to come here, because even today most of the people in the world live under one form of tyranny or another. Some of it is deadly and bad; some of it is simply mind-numbing control. The simple fact of the matter is that human freedom and human rights exist like nowhere else in the United States of America. But we have an entire generation, maybe two generations, of young people who have not been taught this.

They believe that our rights come from political people we agree with. “Even if it is a tyrant, if he’s our tyrant, he’s good. Even if he’s our king, he’s okay. It’s our government that gives us our rights. It’s our president that gives us our rights. It’s our president that makes sure other people have rights when they’re being denied.” They’re clueless. Totally, 100% clueless. There were 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.

After doing so, they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor as they signed. What happened to the families of many of those men is unspeakable, what the British did, to try to force them to recant. That’s how powerful the document was. Great Britain went to war over that document, over that preamble. It was unspeakable what that said. It was unheard of before, that human beings’ rights come from God. Why do you think communism requires there to be no religion and therefore no God except the state?

Because there can’t be any other source of goodies in life. There can’t be any other source of what you have than your benevolent government, or your tyrannical government, or what have you. The concept of God… If you don’t have a concept of God, you are going to miss the truth of so many things. I maintain it is the absence of God that permits so many otherwise intelligent people to fall for the hoax of global warming. But that discussion, even though I’ve engaged in it before, is for another time.

Meredith Shiner is just one of millions who have been lied to while ostensibly being educated. It’s not a matter of what she has been told; it’s also a matter of what she’s not been taught. She’s worked at some prominent places, and she probably had a fairly good socioeconomic childhood: Northern suburbs of Chicago, Duke, Politico, now Yahoo News, Roll Call magazine. She’s glittering jewel ignorance, and does not know it.

She thinks Ted Cruz is the one stupid. Ted Cruz is the one dangerous. ” Yeah. Yeah. He thinks our rights come from God? Ha! How stupid. What an idiot! That’s really extreme. Wow, man, we can’t permit that! That’s just crazy. Oh, that’s unacceptable. That’s bigotry. You know what? That’s religious bigotry. We can’t permit that! Rights come from God? Who does he think he is?” It’s the attitude. It’s scary stuff.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: If you didn’t know already, now you might have an idea why the left has never been supportive of the United States. It’s all found in the preamble of the Declaration, and that is that our rights, unalienable rights come from God. It’s been unacceptable to them from day one.

“God, are you kidding? What are you, a bigot? You religious extremist, you fanatic. Rights come from God? You’re dangerous. We can’t let you have power.” That’s their attitude. I wonder what Meredith Shiner would say if you told her that there is no explicit right to privacy mentioned in the Constitution. I wonder what she would say to that.

And, by the way, I’m ready for it. I already checked the e-mail. “You’re really being mean to that little reporter.” I’m not being mean. She’s been ill-educated. I feel sorry for her. She’s willfully, wantonly ignorant. Look at all the money her parents have spent educating her. Maybe she got a scholarship. I don’t know. It’s a crying shame. But, anyway, she’s free and clear to call Ted Cruz stupid and an idiot and make fun of him or whatever, and that’s okay, and I point out that she doesn’t have the slightest understanding of the founding of this country and I’m being mean?

Well, let’s pile on then. Okay, I wonder what she would say if she found out there’s no right to privacy mentioned in the Constitution. She’d think I’m wacko, extreme, wrong or whatever. “What do you mean, no right to privacy? It’s right there.” Where? Show me. Show me. And if she knew anything, she might point me to the Fourth Amendment on searches and seizures. No, no, no, there’s nothing there about privacy. We’re implying it or inferring it, you might be inferring it, but you won’t find it mentioned.

Robert Bork was denied a seat on the Supreme Court because he pointed this out. Say what you want, it was Griswold, the case, or Bork saying that the court would be an intellectual feast. Bork was feared because he was a believer in the original intent of the Framers on the Constitution. He was a literalist. There’s no right to privacy in there. “My God, this man’s scary. Oh, my God, we can’t have somebody thinking like this on the court; you’re done.” And he was done.

I wonder what somebody like Meredith Shiner, who’s been educated the same way, would say when you tell her there’s no right to shelter. See, people confuse rights today with benefits. I was watching the finale of Empire the other night. And if you watched it, you’ll know that one of the characters is being forced to testify, to snitch, and she’s called into the FBI office, she refuses to do it. “I know my rights! I know my rights!” she was claiming. In that context, she might have been correct about knowing her rights.

How many people do you hear running around, “I know my rights! I know my rights!” and what they really mean, “I know what I’m entitled to. I know what I’m entitled to. I know what I get.” People don’t have the slightest literal — and it’s unfortunate, but it’s gotten to the point where a discussion of what is a right and what isn’t is considered too esoteric. It’s considered too nuanced.

There is no right to equal income. There’s no right to an income, period. There’s no right to a living. There’s no right to food. There’s no right to water. There’s no right to health care. There is no right to health care. There never was and there isn’t now. If it’s a right, it ought to just be there. You shouldn’t have to go get it. You certainly shouldn’t have to pay for it. How much do you pay for your freedom? Ah, the uniformed military people might pay for you. How much are you paying for your freedom? How much are you paying for your life, your right to live, the fact that you’re alive, who do you go to every day to pay to stay alive?

And you get up, you want to be happy, what counter do you go and give ’em your credit card and say, “I’m here to get my happiness for the day.” Where do you go do that? Same place you go to get your food, right? “Here’s my right to food, give me my food. I have a right to water, give me my Evian. I have a right to a house. I have a right to shelter. I have a right to abort my baby. I have a right,” whatever it is. People start throwing the word around in ways that — no justification whatsoever, but you can’t tell ’em, cannot tell ’em.

When you tell ’em that everything they think they have a right to, they don’t, they become afraid of you like they’re afraid of Ted Cruz, and they think you’re gonna start taking things away from ’em. And that would mean Washington not working. (laughing) “And we can’t elect people that are gonna take things away from me. I have my rights!” Well, it is what it is.

I’m sure people who are of the same educational standing as Meredith Shiner listening to me now think I don’t know what I’m talking about and I am literally full of it and may even be dangerous. “Today I heard this guy on the radio saying, ‘Where do you go to buy your happiness?’ Do you believe that? This guy said there’s no right to shelter. I don’t have a right to food? I damn well do!” Really? You have a right to food? Who gave you that right? Where’d you go to get it? Where’d you hear about the right to eat? “Well, well, I just have it.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t have a right to eat. You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to. Nobody can make you eat.”

“But I have to.”

“That’s right, you have to. You can’t live without eating. It’s not a right.”